US secretary of state meets Saudi king and foreign ministers of UAE, Bahrain and Egypt in effort to solve Gulf dispute.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has held talks with Saudi Arabia's King Salman before meeting with his counterparts from the kingdom and the other three Arab states that have imposed a blockade on Qatar.

The meeting on Wednesday brings together foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt with Tillerson in the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah, according to the Saudi-owned TV network Al Arabiya.

"I think Qatar has been quite clear in its positions, and I think those have been very reasonable," Tillerson said on Tuesday.

Tillerson and the Qatari foreign minister also announced that the US and Qatar made an agreement on combating "terrorism" and its financing during the visit.

Mohammed bin Abdulrahman said the memorandum of understanding has nothing to do with the current dispute.

But Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) called the agreement "insufficient".

They added that the memorandum is "the result of pressure and repeated calls over the past years by the four states and their partners upon Qatar to stop supporting terrorism", an allegation Qatar denies.

US officials said Tillerson does not expect an immediate breakthrough, which they warned could be months away.

Rather, they said, he wants to explore possibilities for prompting negotiations.

On June 22, the Saudi-led group issued a 13-point list of demands, including the shutdown of Al Jazeera, limiting ties with Iran and expelling Turkish troops stationed in the country, as a prerequisite to lift the sanctions.

Doha rejected the demands and the countries now consider the list "null and void".

Kuwait is trying to mediate the dispute.

'Take the temperature'

The US has been supporting Kuwait's mediation efforts, but Tillerson's trip marks a new level of US involvement.

Senior Tillerson adviser RC Hammond said the package of demands, as issued by Qatar's neighbours, was not viable, but said there were individual items on the list "that could work".

Hammond would not elaborate on which demands Qatar could meet, but said concessions from the others would be required.

"This is a two-way street," he said of a dispute among parties who each have been accused of funding "extremists" in some way. "There are no clean hands."